Haley's Poker Blog

Monday, January 28, 2013

Picking up where we left off this morning, this post provides the actual account information attached to seven more accounts used in the UltimateBet cheating which were known to be used by Russ Hamilton in his long-running cheating scheme at that site.

This morning, I provided the real names as listed for four new cheating accounts, whose screen names had been listed within a photo dump by long-time Hamilton computer guy Travis Makar. Those four accounts -- BEER2GO, DIAM123, ILENDU and GOGRACY -- can be viewed here.

I also speculated that the links behind some of those names suggested that the way they were created was for Russ Hamilton to supply names and addresses of friends from his vast circle of acquaintances, and Makar created accounts in their names. Investigations elsewhere have shown that at least six of the AOL accounts in the Makar photo dumps, all housed at AOL, were registered either specifically to Makar's wife, Lauren, or to an unidentified person in the Las Vegas area (which could still be one of the Makars).

Since then I've received confirmation from a secret (but quite trustworthy) source, this afternoon on Skype, that this is exactly how these accounts were created. Hamilton supplied the names and addresses and Makar used them to create UB accounts.

Now it's on to the next seven, which were identified in indirect means from other information in Makar's photos. Those seven accounts' screennames were released yesterday right here -- BRANSON, DANAS, STRAYCAT1980, TUNICADOG, VEGASRUN, WINDSORWIN and GREEKTOWN.

In the last batch, there was a different Dana, a Dotson that lived in another town on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks (Fredericktown). This Dana's husband in named Darrel, and the two are in their 50s. Think that's a coincidence? Then there's this one:

Does DANAS refer to two people named Dana, in some memory game of Hamilton's? Who knows? ... or cares, really. But this account goes back to someone in Hamilton's old Michigan stomping grounds. Mr. Stacey is in his early 60s.

I didn't really believe there was an Oceana, WV until I looked, and yes, it's real, as is this gentleman, who today is in his early 50s. Again, the general age equality between all these people and Hamilton cannot be overlooked.

Back to Hamilton's old Michigan stomping grounds for this one. Is likely related to Robert Stacey (DANAS, above), and who knows -- there may even be a connection to the "Ricky C Gracy" stuff in this morning's account batch. Mr. Stacey is in his mid 50s.

And yet another account with a purported Michigan address, linked to the UB cheating. McCann is an outlier by age among this presumed circle of Hamilton associates, being only 42 or so today.

. . . .

All of these people -- very real people, to be sure -- would have been included in the KGC's list of alleged Hamilton co-conspirators had these accounts been identified earlier. Whether they actually had anything to do with the cheating is another matter altogether. Nonetheless, the accounts existed, and thanks to Russ Hamilton, their names are now linked to online poker's largest-ever cheating scandal.

Again, anyone who can provide specifics as to the linkage between these people and Hamilton is welcome to contact me, and can either get a public shoutout or remain confidential, according to wish. At this point it's nothing more than completing the jigsaw and dropping in a few more random pieces, but the project goes on.

As we mentioned last tine out, a release of data by Russ Hamilton's former computer guy, Travis Makar, has led to the confirmation of eleven new known accounts used by Hamiilton in the UltimateBet insider cheating scandal.

Those familiar with the scandal may remember than four years back, when the Kahnawake Gaming Commission issued its report publicly blaming Hamilton, they also released a list of 31 people who were allegedly involved to various degrees. As exposed here back then, that list was composed roughly 50/50 of outright fake names created for Hamilton's use, along with a number of people associated with either UltimateBet or Hamilton himself who had some connection with the outed accounts.

Those also included in the KGC lists included Makar, his wife Lauren and mother Becky, along with several friends of Hamilton's including Natalie Digioia, Ron Saccavino and Dennis Novinskey.

Photos released two days ago by Makar included the screennames of four more UB accounts likely used by Hamilton in the cheating, and yesterday I published an additional seven accounts that can be gleaned by cross-referencing the photos to UB data files I have. Those eleven new cheating accounts:

BEER2GO
DIAM123
ILENDU
GOGRACY

BRANSON
STRAYCAT1980
DANAS
TUNICADOG
VEGASRUN
WINDSORWIN
GREEKTOWN

Today comes the publishing of the primary account information for each of the eleven files. A couple of them are already linked to Hamilton, and the task for readers (should they join in the effort) is to provide more links to the other people listed and confirm what's known. Hat tips here to all who come up with relevant info.

My working assumption is that when Hamilton set up his scheme, he scoured his extensive lists of friends and relatives for people who weren't likely to play poker, or as in the earlier cases of Saccavino and Novinskey, he just went ahead and used an account in their name. Unlike a theory proposed by Druff over at the pokerfraudalert blogs, I don't think that most of these were used for cashing-out purposes, though it's possible. I think it's more likely that these accounts were used to cheat at the tables by Russ, who then transferred the illicit winnings back to other Russ accounts.

It is also possible that some of the people listed here have connections to close Hamilton associates such as Fred David or Charles "Woody" Moore, the latter who is actually the person linking Makar to Hamilton over a decade ago.

From the top, then, the first of two posts looking at the latest 11, which all seem to link to real people. Let's start with the four accounts directly listed by Makar in one of his photos. While these accounts appear to actually have been in use by Hamilton, if the standards used in the official KGC report on the UB cheating were applied here, then all of these names would have been included as purported co-conspirators, which also says something about the shoddy job done by the KGC. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, but their names are on these accounts:

BEER2GO

Dana Dotson

P.O. Box 656

Fredericktown, MO

Mrs. Dotson appears to be a 76-year-old grandmother living in Fredericktown, a nice little town on the northeast edge of the southern Missouri Ozarks. (I've been there.) This account's info brings up a couple of points about this latest batch of accounts, in which the recurring theme of names and addresses general involves several distinct locations -- Las Vegas, Michigan (where Hamilton formerly lived), Texas (where a lot of Hamilton's associates have lived), and the Missouri Ozarks.

Most of the names in the latest batch also seem to be white men in their 50's, which would tend to be the general descriptor for many of Russ's sportsbetting/golf/poker cronies. Mrs. Dotson doesn't seem to fit that bill, though either of her two sons, Doug or Ron, might.

DIAM123

Alfonso Ceron

3585 S. Maryland Pkwy, Ste. G

Las Vegas, NV

Alfonso and his wife Brenda (alternate spellings of last name include "Cerrone" and "Cerone"), own and operate the off-off-Strip business Gold Rush Jewelry Design; this is the business address of the place. The connection to Hamilton may well come from a previous business venture of Hamilton and Mansour Matloubi's, in which they were involved in Thailand in a business that manufactured faux diamonds.

Anello is a Vegas-area real estate broker who likely has golf (and possibly sportsbetting) ties to Hamilton. Needs some firming up with additional info, and he doesn't seem to be a regular poker player.

GOGRACY

Mary Banks
1291 Bruce St.
Pahrump, NV 89048

This one might be a fake, the only one of this first batch for which that can be said. "Mary Bruce" is the only one of these four I can't match up via the intertubes to that address, which of late belongs to a man named Reed Reynolds, who runs a smallish AAAA Handyman Svcs. business from that address. I doubt Reynolds has any more to do with this than "Mary Banks".

More interesting, perhaps, is the "gogracy" name, along with a "rickycgracy" as the password for one of this account's associated entries. While there is another "Ricky" attached to the next batch of accounts, there are a couple of Rick C. Gracy folks on the web who fit the general profile of some of these friends of Hamilton's. Does anyone know?

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Welcome back, friends and neighbors, to the blog series that never ends. This time out, we'll toss out a few more accounts that have been linked to Russ Hamilton's cheating at UltimateBet.

The information released today is either included in or derived from a handful of photos that Hamilton's long-time computer guy, Travis Makar, has released to Bryan Micon over at Donkdown. You can find front-page links to the photos this piece references there, but as always, note that DD is a NSFW site, sometimes excessively so.

We're not going to talk about the whys of all this stuff today, merely build on what's there. One photo shows an account linked to ex UB head Greg Pierson, screen-named "ubplayer". I can verify after checking several sources that "ubplayer" is an account that was deleted from later UB files.

Makar released four other small groups of e-mail addresses and account names, seemingly in connection with the UB cheating. A good share of my Saturday was spent researching these accounts.

One image shows the following series of aol user names: THENUTZFORME, IGAME4ME, RKYDH, POFANME, AHHROUNDER and LPWDRY. These are not UB screen names, but the last one can be linked conclusively to the "LIVTHELIF" account purportedly registered to a "James Brunson," one of about a dozen and a half fake names already known to be used by Hamilton, as revealed earlier on this blog. There is reason to believe that all six of these AOL names are related to other fake-named UB accounts that have already been discovered.

Not so with the other three images. One of those three shows four new screen names not previously associated with the Russ Hamilton cheating. Those four accounts:

BEER2GO

DIAM123

ILENDU

GOGRACY

Each can clearly be added to the list of known UB cheating accounts. That leaves two images from the latest Makar batch, which together show the log-ins at various third-party e-mail sites for accounts under Hamilton's control. All told those images show another 11 accounts.

After a day's worth of unexpected work and exhaustive cross-checking of other files in my possession, I am able to put screennames to seven of those 11 accounts, and they should also be added to the known "Russ Hamilton" cheating list. These are the seven additional UB screen names which can now be tied to the cheating:

BRANSON

STRAYCAT1980

DANAS

TUNICADOG

VEGASRUN

WINDSORWIN

GREEKTOWN

Each of these 11 new accounts, in turn, may also have used multiple screennames during their existence.

Now here's the kicker. Without getting into the specifics in great depth, it appears that each of these accounts is linked to a verifiable, real-life person, much like the Ron Saccavino / Dennis Novinskey / Natalie DiGioia accounts among those already outed, where these people allowed their names to be attached to accounts in probable exchange for other favors and compensation from Hamilton.

My working theory (as yet unproven), is that Russ supplied the names and addresses from his real life

list of friends and acquaintances, and Travis set up the accounts for him. I'll be releasing these as I confirm some of the links involved.

In any event, this expands the list of actual accounts now known to be involved by another 30 percent or so. There will be others.

Recent events have demonstrated to me that getting out the true and full stories of the AP and UB cheating scandals is going to entail significant legal effort, in addition to all the legwork of the past several years. Such is the nature of the beast. While I've resisted doing so for years, it's finally time to ask: Do you have some spare change to contribute to the cause? I'm going to be needing to mount both offensive and defensive legal efforts in the months ahead, and any contributions to cover these expenses are gratefully appreciated.

Who am I? A veteran writer/editor with decades of published writing credits, and at one time the Editor-in-Chief of PokerNews.com (though these days, "Tony G" is a dirty word to me). Currently continuing work on a book on the AP and UB scandals, to be published by Dimat Publishing in late 2012 or early 2013.